


Rescue Team Iwazuka

by MeiranNataku



Category: Free!, Iwatobi Swim Club - Fandom
Genre: M/M, after-series setting, coarse language, dramatic situations, eventual shipping, illusions of Rin/Haru/Makoto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-08
Updated: 2014-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-11 13:53:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1173849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeiranNataku/pseuds/MeiranNataku
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Continuation of the lives the boys lead after graduation. With Rin off to the Olympics, Makoto pilots a helicopter for the Japan Coast Guard, Captain of the rescue crew on board. Paramedics Rei and Nagisa struggle to keep Diver Haru safe as he refuses to take on a diving partner. Drama. Action. Games. Romance. Rated M</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue Team Iwazuka

**Author's Note:**

> Pairings: KyoAni’esque cock-teasing is my specialty.

“Tower to Fly Team Iwazuka.” the measured voice comes from Makoto’s headset and the green-eyed pilot tightens his grip around the helicopter’s jostling controls.

“Gr--nd Control has issu-- cease-op, return to ba-- diately.” the message stutters, the electricity in the air buzzing in his ear as light flashes through the torrential downpour, whiting out all vision for seconds at a time.

Behind Makoto, Nagisa and Rei sit strapped in, grasping their handholds with white-knuckles and frowning at the incoming message they’d been anticipating. Only Haru remains unfastened, crouched by the secure door with his eyes trained on the roiling sea below.

Towering waves reflect in Haru’s blue eyes made dark by the abyss of the storm around them. He absently checks the zipper of his wetsuit, running his finger along the collar.

Exhaling slowly, Makoto reaches to radio back, suppressing the tight knot that forms in his chest cavity, “Copy Tower, Iwazuka returning.” With one last sweeping search across the waves, he turns the metal bird around and points them towards safety. Even with one less crew member than was typically used to fly the large aircraft, Makoto fights the warring air currents, his arms straining with the effort to keep them on course.  
Rei removes his glasses and rubs the condensation from them with the hem of his shirt, “Well that’s it then.” he mutters.

“Yeah…” Nagisa echoes, sinking down away from the window and settling closer to his partner, fingering the strap of a pair of goggles in his hands. “Three hours and not a thing in sight.”

Makoto’s voice crackles through their headsets, his voice not able to carry back from his place at the helm. “We did what we could. We would have seen survival suits or a raft. Can’t save what’s already lost, Nagisa.”

Nagisa looks to his Captain and nods dejectedly. The distress signal had been warbled and distorted, leading the crew to believe the small-class vessel had already taken damage and been going down when the storm intensified. Their forty minute flight to the last known location hadn’t bolstered their odds of finding survivors.

Times like these caused Makoto to second-guess himself. He worried he brought the others into this job against their better involvement; doubted they would thank him for bringing them such heartache. The heavy weight of leaving a search unsuccessful was a burden they’d all had to learn to cope with since becoming a Dive and Rescue crew for the Japan Coast Guard.

Rin had been the only one to decline the invitation, though Makoto had only offered it as a courtesy. After having returned to his rightful home, Rin had trained better than ever and made the Olympic team with the support of his friends, and Makoto never would have pulled him from that.

That left the rest of them struggling to find their way into adulthood. After graduation, the others had willingly followed Makoto through recruitment and training while he’d gotten his license to fly, been excited about keeping the team together and carving out a living they could all be proud of, but somehow the merits of the job seemed to falter and disappear when faced with a flight‘s failure.

Makoto watches his team on his instrument panel’s screen, picked up by the rear cabin’s closed-circuit video feed. Nagisa sits with head downcast over his knees, fiddling with something in his hands. After a moment, a rather stiff arm is placed on his shoulder and doesn’t move even when Rei’s attention is diverted out the windows again. And Haru. The knot in Makoto’s chest drops to the pit of his stomach and he frowns sadly, watching the way his childhood friend keeps attentive at the window, tense and unrelenting in his search. These jobs were the hardest on him, Makoto was sure of it. Four years since graduation and he could still read Haru’s moods as easy as breathing. Or swimming.

Haru’s devotion to the job hadn’t always been this way. At first Makoto found Haru’s involvement technical, if not a bit absent. Haru went through the motions and proved himself a capable diver, but Makoto feared he didn’t get any sense of satisfaction from the job short of being given an opportunity to earn a paycheck while working in the water. Captain Tachibana witnessed all that change the first time Haru reunited a woman he’d rescued with her adolescent son. A son who, without Haru’s skill in the water, would have been left alone in the world.

Watching his friend’s unrelenting vigilance at the window, Makoto had no doubt Haru’s mind wandered to thoughts of those who would be left alone when they returned empty-handed.

Forcing his full attention back to the task at hand, Makoto checks his gauges and adjusts their course slightly East to avoid a nasty patch of storm brewing on his radar. It would add twenty minutes to their flight time, but their fuel level was good, even with the added strain of flying against the wind.

“Makoto.” comes Haru’s voice across the headsets, smooth as glassy still waters, yet stern and assertive behind the calm. Makoto’s eyes shoot to the video screen to see Haru looking directly at the camera. The Diver waits for a moment longer and then nods out the window, “Due East, one click, 3 o’clock.”

Heart rate picking up, Makoto sweeps his searching eyes where directed and sees it. A flash of orange on the crest of a towering wave. Rei, being nearest that window, makes an unbelieving noise and presses close to Haru. “Where?”

Nagisa is unlatching his harness to join them when Makoto calls his name and gives him a stern look. The smaller blonde balks but obeys, keeping in his seat but craning his neck to see what he can. “There! I see it..” he calls out and Makoto swallows hard.

“Lock in,” Makoto commands his crew, already dipping the nose of the helicopter and gunning forward. The motor protests but the blades cut through the storm, vaulting them towards their target. Rei buckles back in beside Nagisa and checks both their straps to be secure. No surprise to anyone, Haru remains at the door, keeping site of the orange flotsam and ready to act as soon as they are upon it, his body listing this way and that with the swift helicopter’s movements. Flying was a lot like swimming, and Haru felt it as much as he’d learned it, enough that he was never bothered to belt in with the others.

“Fly Team Iwazuka to Tower.” Makoto calls out on the radio, “Reinitiating search at 24:09:50. Target sighted. Approaching for validation.” The words tumble out in quick succession as Makoto expertly brings his machine to hover well above the swelling sea. The waves are sporadic and he scours the disgruntled horizon for rogues, ready to climb higher. Suddenly he hears the latch to the door unlock and is whipping his head around to see Haru hanging out the opening even as the helicopter lurches from the disrupted pressure in the airborne vessel.

“Haru, no!” Makoto calls out over the suddenly deafening storm, stinging pelts of rain hammering them all inside the cabin.

Haru is leaning further out as he looks below, one arm braced along the rail of the door. “Cannot confirm live target. Going in.” comes the quick reply.

Makoto’s eyes widen, “REI!”

“On it!” the paramedic barks back and the sound of restraints being pulled from their coils ends with a satisfying metal snap as Rei manages to hook a lifeline onto Haru’s utility vest. Rei clamps one hand down on the back of Haru’s neck, fingers curling into his wetsuit and hooks the other in his belt, pulling him back inside the cabin.

Makoto rolls his eyes in relief, setting his sights back on his instruments and the new alarms lighting his dash. “Get that shut!” he calls out, but he’s drowned out by the squawk of static and more stuttering communications from the Tower.

“Negative, Iwazuka. Repea--- ative.. Condit-- ns --hazardous… Squall incom-- Return immed--.”

Makoto struggles against the controls, fighting to keep them a safe distance above the surging waters below. The wind has picked up and will only be getting worse according to base. They need to get out of there. Leaning to the left, Makoto searches and quickly catches site of the orange target. It’s a survival suit. A second longer has Makoto’s mouth straightening into a hard line. There’s wreckage in the water, barely visible in the dark night but bobbing jagged around the target suit, no telling how much litters the surrounding water and depths below.

“Haru..” he calls out and sees the blue eyes lock onto the camera, “did you confirm the suit was occupied?”

“No.”

“Rei?” Makoto asks next, knowing it unlikely.

A pause, and then a shake of the head. “Negative. Suit status unknown.”

Time is ticking and the sound of the dash’s alarms grates against the staccato of the storm against the metal hull. The wind picks up, hammering sheets of water against the windscreen and Makoto has to fight the controls to keep them stable. He steels his nerves, working towards making the decision that has to be made. “Rei, ready to secure Haru and open the latch. Haru, with me.”

Haru glances up at the camera, then nods once. Carefully he makes his way to the helm and leans in where Makoto can turn to face him. The pilot switches off his head set and angles the mic aside, setting green eyes on his best friend. “Haru… I’m going to drop us lower. Get a good look and confirm a survivor if you can. I will make the call for action, understood?”

Whirls of deep blue shimmer briefly before Haru nods once, “Fine.” he answers, but Makoto stops him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Brotherhood first, Haru. Always first.” Makoto reminds him, remembering the oath they all took the day they became Fly Team Iwazuka. The Brotherhood of Four always takes priority, the job second, regardless of other lives on the line. Reckless acts of heroics held no place in team rescue.

A smaller hand comes to secure Makoto’s firmly, then removes it. “Aye, Captain.” Haru replies, and a faint smile ghosts across his mouth at their long-standing joke. It’s the best assurance Makoto is going to get and he nods, sending Haru back to his position.

“Rei! Run it down.“ Makoto instructs.

“Ah-- Right!“ Comes the dutiful reply and a moment later Rei is calling out the Diver Checklist and Nagisa confirming as he secures each of Haru’s safety lines and measures.

“Open House!” Nagisa finally calls and Makoto braces the helicopter for the pressure change as the door slides open once again.

Makoto gingerly coaxes at the controls, easing the hulking mass of their rescue chopper ever closer to the sloshing crests of waves that would flatten three story buildings. By now he knows Haru will be angled out the door, one foot on the rail and grasping the handholds inside and out of the cabin so he can search the waters below.

Makoto’s hand jumps at the squawk of radio chatter and they list to one side before he forcefully flips the radio to silent, his brows narrowing at the distraction. He glances over his shoulder to ensure his crew is secure and turns back to his controls, the radio switch glaring angrily at having been shut off. Committed to exhausting their options of attempted rescue, he puts the Tower’s warning out of mind to concentrate on leading his team.

“Do we have visual?” he checks, eyeing out his view ports and calculating the changing winds and tides, maneuvering them along the roiling mountains of water.

“I have it.” Haru answers curtly and Makoto can hear the tremor in his voice. It’s a quality that intensifies when Haru’s facing the ocean’s entirety and exacerbated by the vortex of rain engulfing them. It leaves Makoto’s throat tight with building anxiety. Haru was not known for keeping his head under such conditions, but as Captain of their crew Makoto had to trust that Nagisa and Rei would keep Haru grounded.

Teetering them along the rim of a frosting surge, Makoto grits his teeth, “Can you make the confirmation?” he forces himself to ask.

Several moments pass without answer and Makoto’s heart is thundering in his chest, mind wondering if he’ll be instructing Haru to dive into the maelstrom below. He hears Rei call Haru’s name in a warning tone and panic grips him. “Haru? Can you confirm?” he repeats, fighting the urge to twist around in his seat. It’s taking him a great deal of concentration to hold them steady and prevent the chopper from blowing around like a leaf on the wind.

Another eternity passes and Makoto picks up a faint breath exhaled through the head set, then Haru’s voice, “I can make the jump.”

“That’s not what I asked. Can you confirm?” Makoto bites back, his voice taking on a slight edge. He sees Nagisa look to him nervously through the monitor, then turn back to the two taller figures at the open door.

“Cannot confirm. Jump path is clear.”

“No. Haru, no.“ Makoto says in a finalizing manner. “We’re not risking it. Calling it- back inside. Rei, Close House.” he orders.

“Aye, Makoto-Sen.. Haru, wait..” Rei’s voice warns.

Makoto checks his perimeter then glances to the monitor in time to see Haru giving him a hard look. “I’m not afraid.” he says resolutely, blue eyes glistening in a flash of lightening.

Dread grips Makoto and he’s struggling in a breath, “Haru, that’s not the issue..” Even as he’s pleading, Makoto’s eyes widen in horror as he watches Haru’s hand settle around the quick release of his vest. The vest that every lifeline is secured to.

Rei’s voice calls out and he lunges forward, but not quick enough. Haru slips out of his vest like a sea serpent and is vaulting himself from the chopper.

“Haru, NO!” Makoto calls out, this time whipping around in his seat just in time to see his best friend plummet into the black. “Rei, take it!” he commands, jumping out of his seat and shoving the blue-haired paramedic behind the controls. “Just hold us here!” Makoto says, shrugging his broad shoulders into Haru’s small vest. He throws his helmet aside and leans out the open door, watching Haru’s body slice into the black water and disappear as the helicopter trembles under the new pilot.

Nagisa is up from his seat, deft fingers working the straps of Makoto’s pilfered vest and adjusting the fit, “You’re secure, Mako!” He calls out against he wind, slapping Makoto across his back even as he flips the lifeline release for an impending dive.

Makoto hasn’t taken his eyes off the water’s surface, growing frantic when he doesn’t see Haru resurface. He’s frozen with panic, a deep urge to fling himself from the doorway warring with his fear of what’s below. He feints twice before his wits come about him, forcing him to be patient and wait for visual confirmation of Haru’s location before losing his vantage point in the sky. Rain pelts against him, soaking through his hair and running down his face, into his eyes.

Squinting against the cold, he finally calls out in dismay, “Haru!“ but his voice is carried away on the wind, barely audible over the fury of the weather.

There, a meter from the floating orange survival suit, a flash of pale skin as an arm reaches to secure the body. Makoto puffs out a breath of relief and clings to the rail along the ceiling, watching as Haru rights the suit and the near-lifeless man inside.

Now faced with two bodies to pull to safety, Makoto begins measuring out lengths of line to drop below. The weather and sea conditions are far too hostile for a basket lift, meaning the two bodies in the water will have to rely on Haru’s strength to hold them in a swing-line as they’re winched out of the water’s grasp.

“Makoto Senpai..” Comes Rei’s voice over the headset, slightly shaken.

“Just hold us here.” Makoto answers, not taking his eyes off of their quarry below as he continues to measure out coils of line around his elbow to his thumb.

“Makoto!” Rei calls again, and this time the tall pilot feels Nagisa tugging at his vest to direct him to the towering rogue wave barreling towards them. Makoto’s face falls and his stomach drops at the mass of water closing in.

Gritting his teeth, Makoto calls for Rei to lift them higher even as he clutches the handrail and curls himself outside the chopper to get the most unobstructed view below. With wide eyes he can only watch as the wave begins to break, avalanching upon itself and churning down over Haru. Massive beams of wooden wreckage jet from the water like toothpicks and before Haru can brace himself he’s pummeled below the surface in a tumble of boat refuse.

The rogue wave flattens the sea for a brief moment and Makoto stares down in disbelief. One moment he’d been watching Haru struggle to keep two heads above the surface, the next he was chocking back a noise from witnessing those bodies beaten deep into the black waters.

Makoto doesn‘t breathe, throat tight, waiting for a sign of where to dive to rescue the two in the water, hoping there is something left to save. Agonizing moments pass as the wave rolls away and then two lifeless bodies momentarily bob to the surface. It’s enough to give Makoto a direction to dive and then they begin to slip down into the black. Makoto tenses and braces himself to dive, hard eyes pinpointing his intended entry point thirty feet below.

With his own line secured to his vest and a second in hand, Makoto rears back, breathes deep, and then launches himself free of the helicopter, his form held perfectly as he experiences the vertigo of weightlessness engulf him. He feels the spray of rain hard against his back and counts two seconds, pivots and angles like a jackknife, plummeting towards the water below.

The surface closes in like a freight train with just as much noise, and at the last second Makoto squeezes his eyes shut, giving in to the thick, pressing blackness that swallows him whole. Ice shocks Makoto’s skin and he smothers the panic rising in his lungs, begging him to gulp air that doesn’t exist.

His downward momentum slows, and the fight begins. The twisting currents wrench him aside, pulled in both directions, and Makoto kicks hard and seals his mouth tight until he bursts through to open air with a gasp.

Immediately he’s overwhelmed by the mass of tremulous ocean around him. The air, the water, the noise, all berating his senses and he spins around, searching.

“Haru!” he calls, shaking water from his eyes and locking on to a muted flash of color to his right. The survival suit is drifting away just below the surface and Makoto reaches for it, long arms pulling through the salty water with firm strokes, vaulting him forward as he begins ascending with the next wave. The darkness all around is choking and he finds himself counting the seconds between flashes of lightening, eyes wide and straining to see a second body, hoping Haru’s still with the orange target.

Forgetting the vast galaxy of water committing supernova around him, Makoto reaches out and grabs the sleeve of the orange suit. His fingers curl around the circumference and a strange relief overcomes him, confirming a body within. He reaches and gets his arms under the body, heaving upward until the head of the man surfaces, pale but not gone.

A second head of black hair drifts above the water and Haru chokes out a surge of water, blue eyes shimmering to see Makoto clinging to his upper arm.

“Haru! Take my lifeline…” Makoto instructs, offering the unsecured end with one hand, the other curling under the arms of the unconscious victim.

Haru grabs for the line and misses, slapping the water beside Makoto before reaching again, a rivulet of blood trailing down his temple. At Makoto’s worried look, he shakes his head once to clear the fog and gets a firm hold of the line as they list suddenly.

Makoto grunts out, pulling tight against his chest and water flooding over his broad shoulders as he’s dragged through the current on the end of his line. There’s no time to look up to see the helicopter’s location or how Rei is fairing at the controls. Haru struggles to get two hands around his own line, kicking hard to get enough pulled around his back, gritting teeth hard until he’s managed to snap the closure back onto the line around him.

The moment the clip snaps secure, Makoto is raising his free arm to signal Nagisa for the lift. His limbs are heavy and struggling to tread against the pull of the water beating against him, the small vest compressing his chest and making it difficult to catch a breath. But he holds his rescued man tight against him, locking his secondary lifeline to the man’s survival suit, bracing himself for the pull that will hoist them out of the water, desperately wishing he’d worn the lower harness as well as the vest.

With a hurried look over his shoulder, he sees Haru begin fighting the same pull as his line draws to an end, gradually working the line lower on his body to get seated in the swing of it, gloved hands curling painfully around the taught wire. A wash of red covers a quarter of his face now, sheeting down from his hair and edging near his blue eyes and Makoto must look away to concentrate on the task at hand.

They reach the peak of the swell lifting them and then the ocean begins to sink away, but they are kept stationary, pulled from the water’s crushing hold by the lines leading heavenward. The pressure around Makoto’s ribs is bruising, torquing him painfully with the load of a second body, and Haru clings to his line as it spins in the wind.

Gradually, Nagisa’s voice carries down to them and they know they’re close, the motors inside the chopper winching them to safety. Makoto gasps air the higher they ascend, watching the waves get farther and farther below, his heart lurching less each time a peak reaches up to grab him. He sees the sturdy metal foot rail and his head falls against his hand around the line, eyes closing briefly in relief.

Then hands are on him, small but powerful as Nagisa drags him back into the hull, heaving with the weight of two drowned bodies. The blonde barely throws them aside before going after Haru.

Rei twists in his seat, glasses slipping down his sweat-streaked face, “Do you have them?” he yells, spinning back around when his wrist hits the controls, causing the nose to dip.

Makoto can’t waste time breathing from his back. H sits up, laying the rescued man beside him and checks his vitals, attention torn between the pale victim and Nagisa struggling to pull Haru inside. But then Haru crumples on his side on the floor of the helicopter and Nagisa is slamming the door shut, the locking bar hitting home with a resounding clatter.

“Secure, Rei!” He pants out even as he moves to hover over Haru and look to Makoto. “We got ‘em!”

“Makoto Senpai?” comes from the cockpit and the tall pilot groans to get to his knees, kneeling over their rescue.

“I’m here, Rei-chan… one moment..” He feels the thready pulse in the man’s frozen neck and puffs out a breath, relieved that he’s still hanging on. Makoto grabs Nagisa by the upper arm and pulls him over, trading places with him in no uncertain terms, grip gentle but unyielding as he goes to Haru’s side.

For his part, Haru looks as abashed as he ever does, blue eyes averted and breathing deep, head bowed as water trails from his hair. Makoto’s large hand brushes back the tacky clumps over Haru’s left eye to reveal the gash that’s pouring blood down his face, and he sighs in relief. It’s just a shallow abrasion.

Green eyes go soft for a moment, blocking out the battering storm around them and Makoto lets his hand drop to Haru’s shoulder.

Haru meets his eyes for two seconds and then looks away, “I’m fine.”

“Tch!” Makoto bites out to the side and Haru startles, looking to his best friend with wide eyes. Gentle eyes have grown severe as they bore into Haru and Makoto’s frowning, mouth set hard. He stands abruptly, snatching his helmet from the seat beside them and Haru can only watch from his place on the floor as the taller man bends to make his way into the cockpit, pulling Rei from the chair with an off-hand pat on the shoulder before sending the paramedic back to his rightful position.

The next few minutes are a flurry of procedure and practice, treating the rescued man and administering care to strengthen his vitals. Nagisa deemed Haru’s condition unthreatening with a quick inspection and had set to work alongside Rei with the other body in their care.

Haru slowly climbs himself into the seat behind him and buckles in, blue eyes going from the work being done to his right to the cockpit, watching as Makoto flies them straight home through the crashing lightening and rolling thunder.

Slowly the storm drags behind and the noise lessens, leaving a tense static in the air punctuated by Rei’s quiet narration and the whir of an oxygen machine. Haru’s breathing slowly steadies and he drops his head back against the seat, keeping the blood from running in his eyes.

Nagisa sits back and glances between Haru and Makoto, frowning and forcing his attention back to Rei’s instructions.

After just half an hour they’re descending upon the tarmac, extra personnel with stretchers awaiting their arrival, hunched in plastic ponchos and hunkered against the wind. The rain has stopped, but the air still drives cold from the ocean, a promise of what’s heading this direction.

The metal bird jostles to the ground a bit abruptly and Haru tenses, eyes locking on Makoto’s stiff shoulders. But then their pilot is throwing all the controls in their shut-down sequence, pulling off his helmet and standing as much as he is able in the confined space. He makes it to the door before the others and slides it open with a quick glance at Haru who can only watch as his childhood friend jumps down from the helicopter and stalks off through the crowd of receiving medics and air traffic controllers.

Rei watches intently, assessing quietly before turning back to Haru. “Haruka Senpai.“ he announces as the rescued man is being pulled from his care, and Haru turns to face him. “That was beyond reckless, even for you. He’s going to make you take on a diving partner.”

Nagisa looks between them and sighs, taking up a sterile cloth and wiping at Haru’s wound, “Yup.”

Packing up their gear, Rei nods. “You’re going to have to get along with one of them.” he warns, wondering which of the divers-in-training would be least likely to quit on them once paired with Haru and his reckless abandonment of protocol. Haru, for his part, hadn’t seemed bent on keeping any of them around, even at Makoto’s pleading.

Haru bats Nagisa’s hand aside and turns back to the door, watching Makoto walk away.

Once off the landing pad, Makoto pulls his phone from his pocket and flips it open, hitting the speed dial. As it rings, he takes a deep breath and sets his hard gaze on the gray sky rolling in over the coastline.

“Rin. It’s Makoto.”


End file.
